


My King, Your Lionheart

by animeangelriku



Category: Glee
Genre: Community: kbl-reversebang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2380187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeangelriku/pseuds/animeangelriku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine thinks that being the Royal Prince of Dalton is great and all, but it stops being so amazing when he starts having more and more responsibilities, and it becomes somewhat of a curse when he realizes he’s in love with his best friend, who happens to be a stable boy, and thus, ineligible as a candidate for Blaine to marry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My King, Your Lionheart

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give the biggest of shout-outs to Robert, who has been one of the best artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. He was always patient with me, he always had something to say about everything I sent him (sorry that I made you suffer so much, bro!), and he always told me not to burn myself out. This fic, while it may be for everybody else in the Klaine community, is for you, man. Thank you for everything! (I apologize for the delay in putting this up here...)

Blaine’s favorite game involved “crowning” his best friend Kurt with his own crown.

Well, no, that was the beginning of his favorite game.

_Fine_ , it was the beginning of _all_ his favorite games ( _all right,_ about half of them, in any case).

Blaine would take off his crown and put it on Kurt’s head. With his wooden sword (he would use a real one, but he wasn’t going to get one of those until he was ten), he would touch each of Kurt’s shoulders and say, “I now proclaim you Prince Kurt, defender of the kingdom of Dalton, best friend of His Royal Prince Blaine!”

The “crowning” ceremony, carried out in the castle’s stables, meant that it was Kurt’s turn to save Blaine from whatever danger he was in. Sometimes it was something simple, like rescuing Blaine from a really high tree he’d gotten stuck on, unable to climb down. Some other times, it was something a little more difficult.

Kurt straightened the crown on his head. The horses of the stable whickered softly, as if they enjoyed watching the two children play. “Thank you, His Royal Prince Blaine! What do I do to save you?”

“I think you’re supposed to use the word ‘shall’,” Blaine said with a small frown.

“What does ‘shall’ mean?”

He thought this over for a minute. “I don’t know,” he said. “But my dad uses it all the time. I guess we can use it the next time we play!” This made Kurt smile happily, and the young prince made a mental note to ask his father what “shall” meant.

“Okay!” Kurt cried out.

Blaine grinned, but then he remembered he was supposed to be in danger, so he pretended to be scared. He climbed a mountain of piled up hay and sat at the top. “Save me, Prince Kurt!” he screamed. “A very evil dragon has captured me! Please save me!”

Kurt feigned surprise. “How evil it is?”

“It’s the evilest dragon ever!”

“Oh, no!” Kurt pictured the silhouette of a dragon standing before the pile of hay, imagining that the stable was instead the evil creature’s lair. The pile of hay was actually a tiny mountain with a dungeon on the top, where Blaine was trapped. 

Oh. Oh, heavens, Kurt needed a sword and a shield to protect himself from the dragon! 

“What does the dragon look like?” he asked while he quickly ran around the st— _lair_ , looking for something he could use as armor. 

“Um…” Blaine, from his _dungeon_ , covered his eyes with his hands. His mind worked much better when he couldn’t see what he was trying to imagine. “It’s a purple dragon,” he said. “With… with red scales! And its tail has a lot of spikes!”

Kurt gasped loudly; this was going to be a really tough challenge, especially if he didn’t have a— _oh_ , a metal stick! That would work as a sword! It was right next to Kurt’s favorite horse, and when he picked up his new sword, the horse nodded his head, like he was saying, _well done!_ The stick had a strange symbol on the opposite side from where Kurt was grabbing it, but he supposed it could help him attack the dragon if he needed to. Now all Kurt needed was to find a shield, and he would be ready to face the dragon and rescue his best friend!

“Kurt, be careful!” Blaine screamed, his eyes uncovered, pointing to where the dragon was supposed to be with his finger. “The dragon just woke up from his nap, and he knows you’re here!”

Kurt gave a little yelp of surprise and quickly hid behind a barrel where his father kept the water for the horses to drink. 

Wait a second… a barrel?

He let go of his sword for a moment, took the two metal rings on the barrel’s lid, and pulled it off with all his strength. Then he slipped one of his arms through the metal rings so that he had a shield, and he picked up his sword with the other hand. He was ready to fight the dragon now!

“Look out, Kurt!” Blaine cried out. “The dragon’s about to spit fire at you!”

Kurt pictured the dragon opening its mouth, gas coming out of it before the creature lit it up. With a scream of bravery, Kurt charged at the dragon just as the first flames started to—

The doors to the stable burst open.

“Kurt!”

The young “prince” turned his head to the doors, and without paying attention to what was in front of him, he slipped and fell headfirst into the pile of hay. The movement was so strong that the mountain crashed down, causing Blaine to fall right on top of his best friend. 

Both boys groaned painfully as Kurt’s father, a blacksmith and the owner of the stable, stood before them. 

“What’s going on here?” he asked, and Kurt sat up (which forced Blaine to roll off him) to look at his dad. He took off the lid from his arm, and he had let go of the metal stick when he’d slipped. The crown, having been on his head during the entire game, fell down his skull, rolling towards Kurt’s father, who looked at it like it might be lethal to stand so close to is. “Is that the prince’s crown?”

“Yes!” Blaine answered, sitting up next to Kurt. “I gave it to Kurt so that he could be prince!”

The blacksmith’s eyes went wide open. Then he took Kurt under the arms to get him back on his feet, doing the same thing with Blaine afterward. “Your Majesty,” he said to Blaine, “you shouldn’t take your crown off just like that.”

“But we were playing,” Blaine said, a little crestfallen. “Kurt had to be the prince,” he explained, “so that he could save me from the dragon.”

“I was about to do it!” Kurt yelled excitedly. “But then you came in and I destroyed the dungeon where Blaine was trapped.”

Kurt’s dad ran a hand down his face. “Well,” he said, “at least you managed to rescue him.”

Both children grinned gleefully and turned to look at each other. 

“Sir,” said the blacksmith, talking to Blaine. “You shouldn’t be here.” 

“But we were playing,” Kurt repeated. Why couldn’t his father understand that they could only play here in the stables? Blaine’s mom had once yelled at him for taking his crown off when she caught them playing in his room, so they had started coming to the stables since then. Now that Kurt’s dad knew they liked playing here, they needed to find another place.

“The queen is looking for you.”

Blaine immediately straightened up. “Oh, I gotta go!” he said, and he immediately grabbed his crown from the ground. Before he left, he gave Kurt a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, both of which Kurt gave back. Then he ran out of the stables, putting his crown over his head as he said over his shoulder, “See you later, Kurt! Thank you, Mr. Kurt’s dad!”

He was out of the stables a few seconds later. 

Kurt’s dad turned to his son. “Kurt…”

“I shouldn’t call the prince by his name,” Kurt said, having heard the same speech thousands of times. He couldn’t help it. After meeting Blaine, the first thing the prince had told him was to call him by his first name. 

“I don’t like people calling me ‘Your Majesty’,” he had said. 

“That’s right,” said the blacksmith. “Now come on, help me feed the horses, I have some armor to finish.”

“Yes, Dad.” Kurt picked up as much hay as he could between his two arms and he went over to the horses to feed them. 

“Kurt, why doesn’t the barrel of water have a lid? And where in the world is the branding bar?”

*

Blaine was trying not to tremble, but the slight shaking of his crown on top of his head told a different story. Kurt and his father had told him numerous times that the horses wouldn’t bite him or kick him if he approached them gently. But the animals were just so big! How could Blaine approach them gently if he was so afraid of them? He had the feeling that he would get his hand bitten off as soon as he tried to pet one of the horses, even one of the younger ones. Besides, Kurt had once joked that they could smell fear, and Blaine wasn’t going to take any chances.

“I’m not sure about this,” he said. There was a palace guard standing behind him, and Blaine was so small that he could lean against his legs, as if they were a wall that kept him away from the horses. Kurt and his dad were also there; his best friend was sitting on top of a barrel of water while his father stood by his side. 

“I assure you, Your Highness,” said the guard, “that I will not allow any harm to come to you.” He had been assigned by the king and queen to keep their son company and to ensure his safety while he was in the stables, even though Blaine was there almost all the time. Where did they think he went to play with Kurt?

(Then again, after their dragon-slaying incident, both children had tried to be more careful.)

“I know that,” Blaine said, “but I’m still not sure about this.”

“You must learn how to ride a horse, sire,” the guard repeated for about the tenth time since they had come to the stables. Of course Blaine had to _learn_ , he was a _prince_ , for crying out loud! All royalty and nobility and people of important status had to be able to ride a horse, especially if you were a prince. 

Blaine had never wished he wasn’t a prince more than right now. 

“Do I really?” he asked, just to make sure. 

“I’m afraid so,” the guard said. 

“Perhaps if you saw Kurt riding a horse?” Kurt’s dad suggested. What was his name again? Blaine kept forgetting, and he felt more embarrassed every time he asked Kurt. 

“It’s worth a shot,” said the palace guard, gently nudging Blaine forward with a hand to his back. 

“He can ride with me,” Kurt said. “I can go on the front and he can hold on to my back. When he gets used to it, he can try riding his own horse.” He looked at Blaine, and the smile he gave him made Blaine feel like maybe he wouldn’t get his hand bitten off. 

He trusted his best friend more than he trusted the palace guard that accompanied him.

“Okay,” he said. “But I’ll only do it if I can ride with Kurt.”

Kurt jumped off the barrel and landed softly on the ground. He’d always had lighter feet than Blaine. “All right,” he said, turning to the palace guard. “The first thing I’m going to do is change the horse you picked out.”

“I don’t see why that should be necessary,” said the guard, narrowing his eyes at Kurt.

“The one you chose still hasn’t been trained properly. If you want Blaine to—”

“Please regard His Royal Prince by his title.”

Kurt seemed about to respond to that, but his father put a hand on his shoulder and slightly shook his head. Blaine never asked Kurt to call him by any royal title if his best friend didn’t want to, but the guards and his parents, well… they didn’t like it when the stable boy didn’t “treat the prince as he should.”

“If you want _His Royal Prince_ to learn how to ride a horse,” Kurt said through gritted teeth, frowning a little, “then he has to start with a horse that’s easy to ride, one he can ride even with his eyes closed.”

“I won’t have to keep my eyes closed, right?” Blaine asked, backing against the guard’s legs again.

Kurt smiled that easy smile of his. “No, don’t worry. Besides, I’ll be with you all the time.”

“You must be within my line of sight,” said the guard.

“Nothing will happen to him while he’s with me,” Kurt said, and Blaine saw he was trying not to snarl his answers back. “I’ve been riding horses since before I could run.”

“I must insist,” the guard said. “I was sent to protect His Royal Prince, and that’s exactly what I will do, even if I am not with him.”

The smile on Kurt’s face faded as he turned on the palace guard. Blaine wanted to hold his best friend’s hand, to tell him that, if it were up to Blaine, he would put his entire trust on Kurt, without any guards, because he knew Kurt would keep him safe. But sadly, Blaine was only eleven. And even if he were older, he was still a prince, and until he was king, he had to obey his parents’ orders. 

“Fine,” Kurt said, glancing sideways at his dad before turning back to the guard. “I don’t see the point, but as you wish.” He walked to the entrance of the stable and pointed his finger to a couple of trees far ahead. “We’ll just go over there, to the beginning of those woods, and then we’ll return. See?”

“Very well,” the palace guard nodded. “I’ll be watching from here.”

Kurt’s dad asked the guard to take the saddle from the horse he had chosen so that they could prepare another, more docile one. Kurt stayed behind to talk to Blaine.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s actually really easy. You don’t have to learn how to do any weird tricks once you’re on the horse. You just have to know how to guide him. Or her, if you ride a mare.”

“What if I fall?” Blaine asked, one of the greatest fears he had about this whole thing. “I could really hurt myself! What if I _die_?”

Kurt bit his lip, which Blaine knew meant that he was trying not to roll his eyes. “You’re not going to die, Blaine. I’ll be in front of you the whole time. Just hold on to me, okay?”

Blaine hugged himself, but he still nodded. At least he knew that Kurt wouldn’t push him to do anything he didn’t want to or make fun of him, no matter how afraid he was. Besides, who could teach him how to do this more than his best friend, who had been with horses his entire life?

“Okay,” he said. 

Both children were still too small to get on the horse—oh, it was a mare—on their own, so Kurt’s dad and the palace guard helped them climb on: Kurt first and Blaine behind him. The young prince immediately held on to the stable boy, wrapping both arms around his waist. 

“Be careful,” said Kurt’s dad, always worrying about his son’s safety.

“Don’t go too far,” said the palace guard, even though Kurt had already told him where they would go. 

Kurt looked over his shoulder at Blaine. “Ready?” he asked, and Blaine could simply nod and try not to fear for his life. 

“Oh, wait!” The prince took off his crown and put it on Kurt’s head. “I now proclaim you Prince Kurt, defender of the kingdom of Dalton, best friend of His Royal Prince Blaine.”

He heard both Kurt’s father and the castle guard gasp, and Kurt seemed to be at a loss for words. Why, if it wasn’t the first time Blaine had done this? If anything, it made _him_ feel better to know that his best friend was now a “prince” himself and would protect Blaine from any danger, at any cost. 

“Thank you, His Royal Prince Blaine,” Kurt said at last, his scripted line in the dialogue of every game they ever played. “What shall I do to defend you?”

He could hear the smile on Kurt’s voice. He’d been the one to find out what the word “shall” meant.

“Just…” Blaine swallowed. “Just make sure I don’t fall.”

“Okay,” Kurt answered. “I will.”

The moment the mare started to move, Blaine closed his eyes and felt the need to scream, but he didn’t want to yell right in his best friend’s ear, so he repressed the urge. 

“Are you okay back there?”

“I think so!” he replied, and then he heard Kurt laughing.

“Did you close your eyes?” the boy asked.

Blaine took a second to answer. “Yes?”

Kurt laughed again, but it wasn’t a mocking kind of laughter. “You can open them, if you want to! I promise you it’s safe.” 

So Blaine, completely putting all of his trust in his best friend’s words, opened his eyes. 

The mare wasn’t moving as fast as Blaine has thought; she was barely trotting, and Kurt seemed to have complete control of the reins that held her. They were nearing the edge of the woods now. He could definitely see why a prince would need to know to ride—it shortened the time it took to travel. How fast would they have gotten here if the mare had galloped instead of trotted? 

“See?” Kurt gently leaned his head back so that it touched the top of Blaine’s head. “I told you, you’re safe with me.”

“I believed you!” Blaine said. “I just didn’t know if the mare would listen.”

“Do you want to try now?”

“ _What_?”

Kurt pulled on the reins so that the mare would stop right at the edge of the woods, when they were turning to go back to the stables. “We can switch places if you want to try leading her.”

“I think I’d rather stay here for now,” said Blaine, and he tightened his grip on Kurt’s waist, leaning his head on Kurt’s back. 

For a moment, he was afraid that his best friend would insist and make him lead the mare the rest of the way, but Kurt simply responded, “All right. But maybe you should see what I’m doing, so that you know what to do, too.”

“Okay,” Blaine said. “That sounds good.” He leaned forward so that he could see what Kurt was doing.

“If you want your horse or mare to move forward,” Kurt began explaining, “you shake the reins a little, like this.” He shook the reins, a movement so small Blaine could barely notice it, and the mare started walking again. “If you want them to stop, you pull on the reins.” Kurt did, and the mare stopped. “If you want to turn them in any direction, you also move the reins to the side you want them to turn.” He seemed to arch the reins from one side to the other, and depending on what side he arched the reins, the mare would turn. Then Kurt shook the reins again, and the mare continued walking towards the stables. “If you want your horse or mare to trot, you shake the reins again. And once you’ve been riding horses for a while, you can hit their sides, gently, with your heels so that they start galloping.”

Blaine held even tighter to Kurt. “You won’t make her gallop, right?”

“No, don’t worry,” Kurt said with a soft smile. “You’ll do that when you’re ready,” and he continued to take them back to where his father and the palace guard were waiting for them. 

“Certainly took you long enough,” the palace guard said as soon as Kurt had stopped the mare in front of the stables and nearly pulled Blaine off the animal. Then he proceeded to snatch the crown from Kurt’s head. 

“But we were within your line of sight, weren’t we?” 

“Kurt,” his father said warningly, helping him down from the mare. 

The guard from the castle, once he’d put Blaine down on the floor, turned to Kurt and looked down at him. 

“I suppose so,” he said, though he sounded like a lot of Blaine’s teachers when he didn’t understand any of the subjects, not even after they had explained them to him multiple times. Like he thought Kurt was a stupid boy that didn’t deserve much of his attention. It made Blaine incredibly angry, but he was still just an eleven-year-old prince. What could he do against a man who was following direct orders from his father and mother? 

“Your Highness,” said the guard, turning to Blaine and placing his crown on his head. “Perhaps you should try it by yourself now.”

Blaine turned helplessly to Kurt and his father, but the man only shrugged his shoulders, as helplessly as Blaine was, and his best friend smiled apologetically, as if he were saying, _I did everything I could._

“Maybe it’d be better if I didn’t—”

“Sire,” said the guard, and his tone wasn’t exactly friendly and it certainly didn’t make Blaine feel safe. “I must insist.”

What must he _not_ insist on?

“Maybe His Highness should be trained as a rider first—” began Kurt’s father, perhaps realizing what a bad idea this was.

“He has seen the boy do it,” the palace guard cut him off. “That has been enough training.”

The expression on Kurt’s dad told Blaine he didn’t like what he was hearing, but there was nothing he could do. At least he had tried to help him, for which the prince was incredibly thankful. 

“All right,” Blaine said, because he didn’t seem to have a choice. At least the man didn’t insist on the prince riding another horse, because the mare he’d ridden with Kurt seemed like the appropriate option for his first time on his own. Kurt’s father helped him mount the mare, and he held on to the reins harder than he should have, but he didn’t want to take any chances. 

“Her name’s Vivian,” Kurt said. Then he shrugged, like he didn’t think it was something of importance. “Sometimes it helps to call them by their name.”

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, trying to remember everything Kurt had told him moments ago. “Okay, Vivian, let’s do this.” He shook the reins only a little, and the animal started to walk slowly. All right, this wasn’t so bad. He shook the reins a little more, and the mare began trotting. Okay, okay, he could do this. As long as Vivian didn’t gallop or stand on her hind legs or decide to stop listening to Blaine…

The prince tightened his legs on each side of her, and his heels softly hit her sides. 

Vivian neighed and shook her head…

Before she started to gallop. 

“No! No, stop!” Blaine screamed, pulling on the reins so that the mare would do as he said, but it seemed that his control over her was long gone. “Vivian, stop!” Why had she started to—? What had Blaine done wrong? He hadn’t meant to make her do this! He had only meant to hold on tighter to her, fearing he would fall otherwise. Now he couldn’t make her turn toward any side, so the only way she had to continue was to head straight for the woods.

Which she did. 

“HELP!” the prince cried out, feeling like his heart would burst out of his chest, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “HELP ME, PLEASE!” 

He was going to die. He was going to die and it would be the palace guard’s fault and only his fault because he simply _had_ to insist, didn’t he? He had to insist that Blaine learn to ride a horse, because what kind of prince couldn’t ride? Now he was going to die without having ever learned, and he would become the kingdom’s laughing stock after they had stopped mourning his death, and he would…

Behind him, he heard the sound of another horse neighing, and he only hoped that Kurt’s dad had taken one to go help him. Blaine’s knuckles were white against the reins he was still holding for dear life, pulling on them like Kurt had shown him, though Vivian would not stop. 

“BLAINE!” Blaine didn’t risk turning his head back, but he knew that was Kurt’s voice. Was he the one riding the horse behind him? “Pull on the reins! Pull on the reins!”

“ _That’s what I’m doing!_ ” Blaine screamed, the tears now falling down his face. “ _I don’t think it matters at this point!_ ”

He heard the sound of more hooves approaching him. “Hold on!” Kurt yelled, and he sounded closer. How had he gotten so close this quickly? Thank God the mare Blaine was riding wasn’t the fastest horse on the stable. “When I say ‘now’, pull on the reins as hard as you can! Don’t worry, you won’t hurt her!”

“I’m more worried about her hurting me!” Blaine replied, but he wrapped the reins around his entire palms to get a better grip on them. He knew he wouldn’t hurt Vivian, and he trusted Kurt to know what he was doing. 

“NOW!”

The prince used all the strength he had in his small arms and pulled on the reins as hard as he possibly could. The mare stood on her hind legs and kicked with her front legs. Before she got her four hooves back on the ground and kept galloping away, Blaine felt someone fall behind him, and two arms surrounded him and held the reins as well, keeping Vivian from continuing on. 

“Don’t let go!” Kurt instructed behind him, jumping off the mare to stand in front of her. He raised his hands and tried to reach her muzzle. “Easy, girl, easy!” The animal tried to move past him, but the stable boy wouldn’t let her run off anywhere. Why wasn’t he scared? How wasn’t he scared? Blaine tried to calm his frantic breathing, but he feared for his best friend’s life. If something happened to him, it would be because of Blaine. “Hand me the reins,” Kurt said, so quickly that the prince didn’t understand him at first. Then he held out his hand, and Blaine immediately threw the reins over Vivian’s head so that Kurt could grab them. 

He used them to pull the creature closer to him, and he gently petted her muzzle with his hand, making soothing noises as he did so. 

“It’s okay,” he said, keeping the mare’s head as close to his own as possible. Blaine held on to his saddle with both hands, though his eyes never left his best friend. “Easy, Vivian, easy. It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

The prince swallowed harshly. He was breathing normally again, although he still felt like he was going to faint any moment now. 

“Are you okay?” Kurt asked him, still holding Vivian’s muzzle with his hand. Blaine nodded. His throat was so dry, he doubted he could talk. Kurt smiled, apparently relieved, but then he furrowed his eyebrows. “Your crown fell off.”

“What?” Blaine ran a hand through his hair. His crown was definitely not on his head anymore. He hadn’t felt it fall…

“We can pick it on the way back,” Kurt assured him, more worried about the crown than Blaine was. It wasn’t that the prince didn’t care, it was just… well, he didn’t like wearing it. He didn’t like people treating him differently when he had it on his head, like he could have them beheaded thanks to it. For now, at least, he couldn’t. How come he knew that but other people didn’t? Kurt was the only one who treated him like he was another child, just like all the other ones that lived in the kingdom of Dalton. 

That was why they were best friends. 

“I’m sure it must be around here,” Kurt went on, still talking about the crown. 

“Yes, it—it must be,” Blaine agreed. The horse Kurt had been riding, now without a rider, had stopped behind the two boys and the mare to softly paw at the ground. Blaine started to dismount Vivian—at least he _tried_ to dismount her—but Kurt stopped him. 

“Stay right there,” he said. “I’ll guide her back to the stables. Who knows what that guard might say if he sees you walking.”

The young prince frowned to himself. Sadly, he knew Kurt was right. He didn’t want to ride this mare anymore, but he felt safer now that his best friend would be guiding her to the stables, stopping her from galloping away, out of control. The stable boy took both horses by their reins, and he began the way back to the stables, looking down at the ground in search of Blaine’s crown. He found it, right before they got out of the woods, and he let go of the reins of his horse so that he could pick it up and give it back to Blaine.

“Thank you, Prince Kurt,” Blaine said as he placed the crown back on top of his head and held on to his saddle. He saw Kurt smile at the title before he continued moving. 

Once they were in the stables again, Blaine noticed that Kurt would not stop glaring at the palace guard, like he wanted to yell at him for having forced Blaine to ride the mare on his own when he was still too nervous to do it. His father kept a hand on his son’s shoulder, as if he knew exactly what he wanted to do and knew Kurt needed someone to stop him so that he wouldn’t get in trouble. 

“Sire, we should leave,” said the guard, one of his hands on Blaine’s back, perhaps to move him along. “The king and queen will be expecting you back by now.”

The prince simply nodded, but before he allowed the man to take him to the castle, he moved towards Kurt, hugged him and quickly pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for saving me,” he said, and Kurt smiled gratefully, like he was the one who owed Blaine his life instead of the other way around. “Goodbye, Mr. Hummel,” he added, quickly bowing his head, hoping the guard wouldn’t notice. He didn’t, but Kurt’s father did, and he smiled that easy smile Kurt had probably inherited from him. 

On their way back, the castle guard cleared his throat, and Blaine nodded his permission for him to speak. He thought it was ridiculous that he would ask permission if they were alone, but he said nothing of it. He knew it would be futile. 

“If I may make a suggestion, Your Highness,” the guard said, “I would not recommend having such a close relationship with the stable boy.”

Blaine came to a halt immediately. “I’m sorry?”

“I realize you may have a deep regard for him,” the guard continued, stopping behind him, “but I consider him unbelievably disrespectful of you. Perhaps you have allowed him too much freedom to treat you whatever way he pleases—”

“Kurt has never been disrespectful to me!” Blaine cried out, turning on his heels to face the guard. “If anything, he saved my life today. Who knows what would have happened to me if he hadn’t gone after me! I appreciate your concern, but my relationship with Kurt isn’t any of your business.”

“I understand, sire—”

Did he have to insist on _this_ , too? Blaine wanted him to shut up, to be quiet about this. Maybe the man held Blaine’s safety above everything else, and the fact that his life had been at risk was, to him, somehow Kurt’s fault. Why else would he say the stable boy was disrespectful? Was it because Kurt didn’t call him “His Royal Prince Blaine”? Was it because he treated Blaine like he would any other boy? 

“I would like for this subject to end,” said the prince. 

“Sire, I’m afraid I must—”

Blaine didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence.

_I’m afraid I must insist._

_“That’s an order!”_

The guard immediately went quiet. 

Oh. Oh, good God. 

Blaine had _never_ ordered anyone to do anything. Ever. He had never liked to have such power over someone simply because he was a prince. All the orders the staff from his castle followed came from his parents, not from himself, never from himself. Having given an order to the palace guard, annoying as his insistence may have been, made Blaine feel sick to his stomach. 

“Let’s move on,” he finally said, turning around and fully expecting the guard to follow him.

He did. 

*

“I was looking out for him.”

“That’s not your job.”

“I know it’s not, but what was I supposed to do? Just stand there and hope the guard would do something? When he was the one who put Blaine on Vivian in the first place?”

“You could have been killed!”

Kurt scoffed, he _actually_ scoffed, he was so angry. “Dad, I think we both know that’s not true.”

“What if Vivian hadn’t stopped?” his father demanded, his face flushed and even angrier. “She could’ve trampled you! She could’ve kicked you in the head or stepped on you or—”

“I knew I was safe!” Kurt screamed. “I was worried that she would kill Blaine, not me!”

Burt massaged his temple with his hand. He didn’t even scold Kurt for not calling Blaine by his royal title. “You shouldn’t have just run out without telling me what you were planning to do.”

Kurt bit his lip and looked down at the ground, kicking a bit of hay with his foot. “I wasn’t sure,” he said softly. “About what I was going to do. I just… knew I had to stop her somehow. Before she got him hurt. Or killed.”

His father sighed deeply in resignation, as if he already knew he wouldn’t win this argument.   
“Hopefully, this won’t happen again,” he said. “But if it does—”

“I’ll tell you that I’ll go after him,” Kurt finished for him. “I won’t just run out of the stables with no plan in mind. I promise.”

Burt halted in front of Kurt, and he wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulders. Kurt had grown in the last few weeks; he would literally catch up to his dad in no time. In the next couple of years, he would do nothing more than keep growing, and the work he did around the stables would help him even more. 

“You scared me to death when you jumped on that horse—an untrained one, I’m sure you know—and took off after the prince.”

Kurt smiled, returning his father’s embrace. “I don’t know how I did it,” he said. “I can’t even reach the saddle on Vivian.”

“Instinct, perhaps,” his father suggested. Then he let go of his son and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Don’t ever do it again.”

“I’ll try not to,” Kurt said, because he was sure he would do it again if it ever came to it: if Blaine was ever in danger, and he could do something to help his best friend, he would do it, his own wellbeing be damned. 

“Good,” Burt said, ruffling Kurt’s brown locks of hair as he made his way out of the stables. “Now, since you’ve already bonded with the new horse, why don’t you go ahead and train him. And give him a name while you’re at it.”

“Yes, sir.” Kurt saluted his dad with his hand, and Burt rolled his eyes at him but walked out with a smile on his face. Kurt approached the pen in which they’d put the horse he’d ridden on his little rescue mission—the one that was next to Vivian—and he softly reached out to touch the horse’s muzzle. He leaned in as soon as Kurt lifted his hand. “Okay, buddy. What shall we name you?”

*

“Just relax,” Kurt kept saying. “You’re too tense. That makes him nervous, too, and it gives him more chance to take any unplanned sign of you as an opportunity to run away.”

Blaine kept his feet on the saddle underneath him, holding on to the horse’s—Henry’s—reins. He was trying to follow all of Kurt’s instructions, whatever they were, but he still thought he was failing miserably. He simply wasn’t made to ride a horse; his parents would have to deal with their son not riding one. Maybe he could be transported in a carriage, or he could ride with someone else. Had they considered those options?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt said once Blaine had told him exactly that. “You just need to have patience.”

“I _am_ being patient,” Blaine responded. 

“Just not enough,” Kurt replied with a smirk. Blaine couldn’t resist sticking his tongue out at him, a gesture that his best friend immediately returned. “You need to trust your horse, Blaine.”  
“I do!”

“No, you don’t. Can’t you pretend, at least?”

Blaine rolled his eyes, glad that Kurt couldn’t see. “All right. Okay. I’ll pretend to trust the horse. Does it make any difference at all to him?”

“Of course it does,” Kurt said, and he and his mare—who, sadly, was Vivian—were next to Blaine and Henry in a second. “How do you expect to ride a horse if you can’t even put your trust in one?”

“I trust you,” Blaine said—it was the only thing he could think of saying, and it was true. “Isn’t that enough?”

Kurt pressed his lips into a thin line, trying to hide his smile. Blaine could see it, though, and he smiled to himself. “I’m afraid not,” said the stable boy. “Try petting him every once in a while. Just gently touching his neck. That’ll tell him that you know he’s harmless, at least.”

“But I don’t know he’s harmless,” Blaine argued, trying not to remember the Vivian incident. Every time he did, he felt a knot in his throat. Which was unfortunate, giving that she was Kurt’s favorite mare and he saw her every time they went out into the woods to ride.

“But _I_ do,” Kurt replied. “And you just said that you trust me. So.”

Blaine hated what Kurt was saying. He knew, however, that this was his best chance at finally learning how to ride a horse without being afraid of being on his own. Besides, if anyone knew what he was talking about, it was his best friend. So the thirteen-year-old prince decided to listen to the stable boy and softly touch his hand to the horse’s neck.

Henry shook his head and whinnied. 

“Oh, God…” Blaine tightened his grip on the reins. “What did I do now?”

Kurt chuckled. “You did nothing wrong,” he said, moving Vivian closer to Blaine and his horse. “It means he likes it. He can see that you trust him.”

“Not quite, not yet,” Blaine said, but he carefully leaned forward to pet Henry’s neck again. The horse had the same reaction as before; even though Blaine knew it was a good sign, he still pulled his hand away immediately and held on to the reins.

Kurt, next to him, was laughing like he couldn’t believe how silly his best friend was. 

*

Henry was an old horse, and though he’d been trained by Kurt and was the horse Blaine had learned how to ride with, he wasn’t meant to be the prince’s warhorse. He tried different horses and mare from the stables, but Blaine didn’t feel comfortable with any of them. Most of them weren’t too old; still, he felt like they would obey when they wanted to and do as they wished just as much. 

“You know,” Kurt suggested once. “Some mares are going to give birth soon. Maybe if you help me raise the calves, you’ll have your warhorse: one you’ve been with practically its entire life.” 

The first two calves in the stable were two more mares; Kurt named one of them Robin, while Blaine named the other one Marion. Once the mares were old enough to ride, they would take them to the woods and back to the stables, sometimes racing to see which one would be better for Blaine. Robin was faster, but Blaine had nearly raised Marion.

“I think she’s the one,” Blaine told Kurt after one of their races to the stables. “Besides, she’s as fierce as a warhorse. Maybe even more.”

“I think definitely more,” Kurt said. “Want to help me brush her? My dad needed some help with a piece of armor he has to finish—”

“Go ahead,” Blaine said, taking one of the brushes Kurt had in one of his hands. “I’ll brush these lovely ladies. Go and help your dad.”

“Is that an order?” Kurt asked him.

Blaine smiled despite himself. He’d told Kurt about ordering the guard to be quiet when he was eleven, and for a long time, Kurt asking him that had made him uncomfortable. Now it made him feel a little silly.

“You’re going to have to get used to it,” his best friend had argued. “When you become king, you’ll have to give orders, whether you want to or not.”

He had supposed, at the time, that Kurt was right. Now he knew the stable boy had certainly been right. 

“No,” Blaine told Kurt now. “It’s not an order.”

“Oh, okay,” Kurt said, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead. “I wouldn’t want to make His Royal Prince Blaine upset.”

“You wouldn’t want to keep your father waiting, either,” Blaine said, and Kurt rolled his eyes at him before he walked out of the stables. 

Over the next couple of years, the prince started spending more time than he used to at the stables, and he’d spent plenty of time there when he and Kurt were raising Marion and Robin. He found himself incredibly bored at the castle, and he wasn’t old enough to attend meetings or make the kind of decisions his father and mother made to rule Dalton. So he left his crown behind in his room and went to the stables, using whatever excuse he could come up with to be there.

“I thought I could help you feed the horses,” he would tell Kurt some times. 

“It’s been a while since we last rode,” he would say some other times, “and I don’t want to lose practice.”

“My father sent me to make sure the blacksmith is taking good care of the stables,” he would use other times. 

Every time, Kurt knew the prince’s words were false, but he still played along and allowed his best friend to be in the stables, pretending to help him do whatever task Burt had asked him to do in the day. After some weeks, Blaine, now sixteen-years-old, would go almost every day to the stables, and he and Kurt would take their mares to ride so that they remained strong. 

*

Sometimes, Kurt would make up reasons for Blaine to stay in the stables a little longer, whenever his best friend announced he should probably head back.

“Could you just help me brush Marion? I can’t get close enough to her. You’re the only one she won’t attempt to bite.”

“Could you help me feed the horses? It’ll be faster if we both do it.”

“Before you go, can you check up on Vivian for me? I need to check up on Henry first, and you know how special she is…”

Blaine gladly stayed, and he seemed almost thankful that Kurt needed his help, like he wanted to postpone his departure as much as Kurt wanted it. 

Of course, he never knew that the stable boy didn’t actually need his help. He never knew that the reason he was asked to help was because Kurt wanted to soak up every moment they had together. He never knew that Kurt wasn’t brave enough to tell him the truth. 

All because Kurt didn’t want the prince to know how he really felt about him. 

*

Sometimes Blaine would hide somewhere in the stables and then scare Kurt by jumping out at him from behind a pile of hay. 

*

Sometimes Kurt, barefooted, would sneak up behind Blaine and poke him in the ribs, and he would laugh like a manic when Blaine jumped with a frightened scream, yelling at him afterwards not to do that again.

He’d always had lighter feet than Blaine, the little bastard.

*

Sometimes they would both brush their respective mares—because Blaine had already sort of adopted Marion as his own, and Kurt had done the same with Robin—in silence. They would lock eyes once or twice, or ten times in the shortest of time spans, and they would smile at each other. 

*

Soon, Blaine realized that he didn’t go to the stables just so that he had something else to do besides walking around his palace. It was because he couldn’t bear being apart from his best friend for long. Ever since he was little and he would go to the stables to play with Kurt—crowning him so that the stable boy would save him from the danger Blaine had thought of that day—he had loved his company. But now he couldn’t be without it.

He couldn’t be without Kurt. 

It was only until his parents started talking to him about the prospect of finding a girl to marry (even inviting princesses from neighboring kingdoms to meet the prince) that Blaine understood what his need to be with Kurt meant. 

The prince was in love with the stable boy. 

*

When they were children, they had always said goodbye with a hug and a kiss on each other’s cheeks. They had done that since they had met. Who had started it, they didn’t remember, but they continued that tradition; it was simply how it had always been between them. 

When Kurt knew that his longing for Blaine’s company went beyond their friendship, when he was thirteen, he had stopped saying goodbye that way. He would just squeeze Blaine’s hand and smile at him, fearing that his embrace would last a little too long, or that kissing Blaine’s cheek would give him away somehow. 

Blaine assumed that it had begun to make Kurt uncomfortable, and when he realized his own feelings for his best friend, he simply hoped that Kurt would not reject him in disgust if he ever gathered the courage to tell him. 

*

Blaine was nervously pacing outside the room where his father was having a meeting with the regents of the court. He’d been forming the words he wanted to tell him in his mind, but they all seemed stupid, or ridiculous, or simply not good enough to express his exact thoughts. How could he say, _I am not attracted to women_ without using those words? Once spoken out loud, Blaine deemed them unfit for the job. 

The princesses he had been forced to meet and dine with and other girls who had been brought to the castle so that Blaine could meet them were all beautiful, and he admitted he found them breathtaking, even. However, he didn’t see himself marrying any of them. He didn’t see himself as king with any of them as his queen. 

And it wasn’t only the fact that he wasn’t attracted to women; it was also the fact that he wanted to marry a man, and not just any man.

He wanted to marry Kurt. 

So, how could he say, _I am not attracted to women—actually, I want to marry my best friend, the stable boy_ , without using any of those words?

He sighed to himself and hid his face in his hands. Good God, this seemed like an impossible task. 

The door of the room where the meeting was being held suddenly opened, and the regents of the royal court walked out, all mumbling and talking around the king. He looked like an older version of Blaine, and the prince wondered if he would look like his father once he was king. 

“There is nothing else to discuss,” Blaine’s father said, silencing the crowd around him. “The peace treaty with McKinley will be signed. If we are ever at war against Lima, we will need allies that surround that territory.”

The regents all left with bows and whispers of, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Once they were finally alone, the king appeared to notice his son for the first time. “Blaine.”

“Father,” Blaine said, bowing his head. “What was that all about?”

“The king of McKinley has been pushing us to sign a peace treaty,” his father said. “He wanted to have our kingdoms united through you and the princess, but it has been decided that she ought to marry the prince of Westerville.”

_Thank God_ , Blaine thought. The princess of McKinley had been one of the princesses he had met as an option to marry. 

“Now that we will sign the treaty, the king of Lima will think twice before declaring war on us again.”

“Right, right,” Blaine said. He hadn’t been born yet at the time of the war against Lima, but his mother had told him all about it. It had been a small victory, considering all the losses they’d held, but it had been a victory nonetheless thanks to his father, who had been at the front of his army, fighting alongside them.

“Was there anything you needed, Blaine?”

Oh. Oh, right. 

“Actually, yes,” Blaine nodded his head. “I… um…”

“Blaine,” his father scolded him. “A prince never stutters.”

_A prince never falls in love with someone who isn’t nobility, either,_ Blaine thought, but he kept the words to himself. “True. I beg your pardon, Father.”

“You are forgiven.”

“I needed to talk to you about something.”

“Of course,” the king said. “Shall we go to the throne room?”

“No, no,” Blaine said. “That won’t be necessary.”

“All right,” his father said. “What is it?”

The prince swallowed harshly. He tried to go through the words in his mind before he spoke them, but now he could not remember any of them. How in heaven’s name was he going to say this?

“Well?” the king prompted. 

“Um… I…”

His father seemed to lose his patience. “Blaine, if you will excuse me—”

“I do not wish to marry a princess.”

The king’s mouth was open, having intended to finish his sentence without any interruption, but he closed it, staring straight at his son, who was holding his hands together, his shoulders hunched, as if he wanted to make himself as small as he could. 

Blaine had not intended to say that. The words had simply spilled out of him, and he doubted he’d had any control over them as they did. 

“I… do not wish to marry a princess,” he repeated, more softly now. “Or… any woman, as a matter of fact. I know it’s expected of me, and I know it matters little what I wish or don’t wish to do, but…”

“So…” The king appeared to analyze what his son was telling him. “You don’t wish to marry at all?”

“N-not exactly,” Blaine said, not knowing how he was going to say the next part. Well, he had managed to say half of it without thinking too much about it. Perhaps what he had left to say would come out in the same way. “I _do_ wish to marry, it’s just… I…”

_I want to marry Kurt._

His father immediately realized what he meant. 

“You wish to marry a man,” the king asked, but it sounded more like an affirmation to Blaine.

“Y-yes,” the prince stuttered, regardless of what his father had told him a few moments ago. 

For quite some time, the king said nothing. He simply looked down at his feet, speechless, as if he were trying to think Blaine’s words through; as if he were thinking how this would affect the future of his kingdom. 

“All right,” his father said at last. “We’ll arrange for you to meet with some of the noblest men from Dalton. And some noblemen from neighboring kingdoms. Surely one of them, at least, will share your wish.”

And he walked away without giving his son a chance to disagree.

Blaine softly groaned to himself, and he brought a hand up to his forehead, running it through his hair. He had gotten himself out from between the sword and the wall simply to be cornered against another wall, with another sword in front of him. 

_Damn it all,_ he thought. 

*

“So now I have to meet up with princes from faraway kingdoms,” Blaine was telling Kurt as the stable boy gave water to the horses. The prince had fed Marion, though; that mare was only gentle to him. “It’s a nightmare, to be honest. Most of them are incredibly self-centered.”

“Just how far are we talking about?” Kurt asked, wanting that hurt feeling deep inside his chest to go away. He had always told Blaine he could tell him anything. He had asked for this, really.

“As far away as Carmen.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Carmen? Does the king realize there is a sea between Carmen and Dalton?”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t my father who suggested Carmen,” Blaine said, kicking his feet from where he was sitting, at the top of the door of one of the horses’ pens—the one that had been Henry’s before Kurt and his dad had to put the old horse down. “It was my mother.”

“Really?” All right, the hurt was dissipating… if only a little. 

“One would think she’d have more sense than that, wouldn’t one?” Blaine asked, running his hands through his hair and ruffling his curls wildly. Kurt wished he could be the one running his hands through Blaine’s hair. He had always wanted to do that. 

“She just wants you to be happy,” Kurt said. “And to be a good king.”

He didn’t notice that the prince was looking at him when he said, “If only she knew…”

Once Blaine was gone—he couldn’t stay for long, the king wanted him back as soon as possible—Kurt went to the blacksmith’s shop, where his father was supposed to be finishing a sword he’d been asked to repair for some… what was he, again? Kurt didn’t remember if the man that had brought in the sword was a duke or an earl or a lord or someone of the sort. Maybe he was only a simpleton wanting to pass by as a nobleman, he wasn’t sure.

When he walked into the shop, he didn’t see Burt.

“Dad?” he called out. “Dad, are you in here?”

He got no answer.

Hm. That was weird. His father never left his shop until he had finished his current job, and Kurt saw the sword half-done; the blade still needed some sharpening.

It was only then that he saw his father lying on the ground.

With a small trail of blood coming out of his mouth. 

*

_“Why is it important that I know the political relations with other kingdoms if we’ve already got peace treaties with most of them?_ ”

Blaine wasn’t yelling, because a prince didn’t have to yell to be heard. He just had to be loud enough. 

But he _wanted_ to yell. Oh, good God, he _truly_ wanted to yell. 

“Because peace treaties won’t last forever!” cried one of the regents, who had, unfortunately, been assigned to teach Blaine about the political affiliations Dalton had. “Your Highness, it is most vital for you to know what armies to keep at bay, what armies should be confronted, what armies would be better having on your side than against you…!”

The regent went on and on and on, and Blaine heard his voice, but he didn’t hear anything he was saying. He had just come back from conducting a ceremony in which he gave the title of nobility to a family who had served the crown before he had even been born, and he was so tired that nothing of what the regent was trying to explain to him made any sense. 

“I didn’t even know this was allowed,” Blaine told one of the guards from the escort that had accompanied him. 

“Oh, certainly, Royal Prince,” the guard said. “And this isn’t the only family that should be rewarded like this. The king knows all of the ones that should be given the title of nobility, but he’s had to deal with other matters. Luckily, now you can carry out these ceremonies yourself.”

Not that Blaine didn’t think this was something wonderful—because it definitely was—but he had felt… awkward while he was carrying out the ceremony. He didn’t know the family. He didn’t know the eldest son, who had served in his father’s army long before Blaine was born. He didn’t know the now deceased father, who had served in the army even longer. He had been surprised by every action leading to their new status as nobility because he hadn’t known any of them. Was he supposed to do this from now on? Turn common folk into nobles without knowing who they were, what they had done, until the moment of the ceremony?

They had also taken his chance to go see Kurt when he went to get Marion to ride while he went from home to home to perform the ceremonies. The staff at the palace had adapted a room into stables, and now some of the horses that had been at Kurt’s stables were kept there. Marion wasn’t, but Blaine had been told to ride another horse. What did it matter if it wasn’t the one he usually rode? These were trained as well. Blaine couldn’t quite argue with that, so he didn’t. 

Besides these ceremonies, now he had to learn by heart all the political allies and enemies of his kingdom. He had been taught Dalton’s history since he was a child, going back as far as five hundred years ago; he had not, however, been taught about all the relationships that had been formed and broken throughout its history. 

And on top of that, he also had to meet princes and boys who would inherit nobility titles such as earls and dukes and viscounts and marquises and barons from every kingdom Dalton hoped to have or already had as an ally without screaming, _“I do not care about you, I care about a stable boy I have known since I was six years old!”_

When had being a prince become so difficult? He wanted to be a child again, mock-crowning Kurt so that the stable boy would save him from an imaginary dragon. His biggest worry back then had been getting home before his parents sent a guard after him. It was only until he was older that they’d started sending one along with him. 

“ _Your Majesty_!” screamed the regent.

Blaine snapped out of his thoughts.

“If you do not wish to _listen_ to me—”

A guard burst into the room—without knocking, which the regent took way too personal. 

“How dare you barge into His Royal Prince Blaine’s chambers!” he scolded the guard, who bowed his head in shame. Blaine, however, didn’t think too much of it.

“Yes?” he said, realizing that the guard had only barged in like that because he surely needed to talk to Blaine.

“Pardon the interruption, my lord,” the guard said. He was young, a little too young to be working at the castle already, but the king always said that everyone at the palace was there for a reason. “But there’s a boy outside who says he needs to talk to you directly.”

“I’m sure you realize that is quite impossible,” said the regent. Blaine hated the way he was speaking for him, as if the prince himself had ordered him to do so. “Nobody from outside the castle walls speaks directly to His—”

“Do you know who he is?” Blaine asked, standing up from his seat. The regent was shocked into silence. 

“He says his name is Kurt?” said the guard, although it sounded like he wasn’t quite sure. 

Blaine bolted out of his room and to the castle’s doors as soon as the young man finished his sentence. 

*

Kurt was screaming, he was _screaming_ , he had never been so loud in his entire life. He had taken Robin and ridden back to the castle as soon as he’d failed to wake his father, feeling like his heart wasn’t in his chest but in his ears, instead, thumping loudly. They must have a physician here, right? There had to be someone to cure anybody who got ill, and what if the king or the queen or Blaine himself fell sick? Someone had to be responsible for their wellbeing, right? 

Right?

Kurt had dismounted Robin before she even fully stopped, right in front of the palace doors, and he had started yelling at the guards who stood in his way, telling them he was a friend of the prince’s, he had to talk to him, it was an emergency, it was a _life and death_ situation, and they weren’t listening, they _weren’t listening to him._

“I NEED TO TALK TO THE PRINCE!” he had cried out, thinking for a moment that they didn’t know who this “Blaine” person he kept referring to was. “TELL THE PRINCE THAT KURT NEEDS TO TALK DIRECTLY TO HIM!”

He was now being held back by the guard that remained at the now open doors, keeping him from running inside the castle. He had sent out the other one for Blaine, but he had left so long ago, why was he taking so long? Kurt was screaming, still screaming, and he had tears running down his face: hot, desperate tears because they hadn’t called for Blaine yet and his father, his unconscious father lay on the ground of his shop, what if he was _dead_?

“KURT!”

The guard let him go and stepped aside to let Blaine come through, and Kurt immediately ran to him, holding on to the prince’s arms, caring nothing for what the guard might say to him.   
Blaine wouldn’t tell him to let go.

“What’s the matter?” his best friend asked, concern filling all of his features as he grasped Kurt’s arms as well. “They said you needed to talk to me—”

“My father—” Kurt gasped, still crying. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. “My dad, he’s— I don’t know what happened to him— he was on the ground, unconscious, and there was blood coming out of his mouth and he wouldn’t answer me and I couldn’t wake him up—”

“All right,” Blaine said soothingly, as if he were trying to calm down a wild horse. “All right. I’ll send for the physician and we’ll go immediately.” One of the guards started to argue, but Blaine looked at him over his shoulder and silenced him with a glare. “Send for him!” he ordered the men at the doors. “And bring a carriage!”

He was the one who rode Robin back to the stables, and the mare pulled the carriage, which was occupied by Kurt and the court’s physician. There hadn’t been time to prepare another horse from the stables now at the palace. The stable boy was still shaking, his hands trembling regardless of how hard he held them over his lap. He had never believed there existed a God, or that his deceased mother had been in heaven since her death, but he still prayed to her. 

_Let him be okay,_ he pleaded. _Please, Mom, let him be okay. He’s all I’ve got left._

He had stopped counting Blaine as someone he had, because the prince would eventually marry off someone of nobility to be his king. He would lose him in a few years, might as well start practicing his departure now. 

But he couldn’t lose his father. 

*

Blaine stayed next to Kurt while they court’s physician examined his father. 

They had carried Burt to his room and laid him on the bed, and Blaine had wanted to hold Kurt’s hand, even if it was only to keep them from trembling. He hadn’t stopped shaking since he was at the palace’s doors, and only God knew how long he’d been shaking before then. But every time the prince moved his hand closer to Kurt’s, he pulled it away almost immediately. He was afraid Kurt would reject him, but he was even more afraid of Kurt squeezing his hand back.

He didn’t want to get his hopes up. Because there was no way Kurt felt the same way for him. And even if he did, Kurt’s family wasn’t nobility—he was a stable boy and his father was a blacksmith. His parents would never allow him to make a stable boy his king, not even if Kurt had been his best friend since he was six, not even if he loved Kurt, not even if Kurt happened to love him back. 

The physician finally finished examining Burt.

“Well?” Kurt asked impatiently. Blaine couldn’t blame him. 

“He’s fine,” the physician said, and Kurt seemed to melt when he sighed in relief: his shoulders slacked, he stopped shaking, and he seemed to go back to breathing normally instead of his ragged breathing from earlier. “He only needs to rest. While he may be a wonderful blacksmith, he’s not as young as to keep working as much as he does. Perhaps you could help him out more from now on, young man.”

He didn’t say it as a lecture, thank goodness. Kurt didn’t take it that way, either, and he simply nodded. “Of course,” he said. 

He and the physician were back in the carriage: Blaine would take them back to the castle, then he and Kurt would ride Robin back to the stables, and Blaine would head to the castle on foot. Kurt had argued with him—how could he even _suggest_ walking back—but the prince had insisted.

“You’re not _ordering_ me to let you go, are you?” Kurt asked, and Blaine immediately knew he was better: he was joking again. 

“Of course not,” the prince answered. 

Their ride to the stables was in complete silence. Kurt was behind him this time, and his hands softly rested on Blaine’s hips, and he was leaning his head against Blaine’s back, as if he couldn’t hold himself up anymore but didn’t want to lean completely into the prince. He’d been a mess since he had found his father unconscious, he was probably more tired than Blaine could tell. 

“Are you okay?”

He felt Kurt nod. “Thank you,” the stable boy said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It wasn’t wrong,” Blaine said. “And it was nothing. I was worried the physician wouldn’t know what the matter was—”

“Thank you,” Kurt said again, like he hadn’t heard him. “You didn’t have to do it.”

“Of course I did,” Blaine said, and he tried not to sound upset. Did Kurt seriously think he wouldn’t help him? Him, his best friend? Him, the boy Blaine was in love with? (All right, Kurt didn’t know the last part, but still.) 

Kurt said nothing else, but the prince thought he tightened his hold on his hips. 

When they got to the stables, Blaine put Robin on her pen, next to Marion’s. He took the chance to pet his own mare, and Marion whickered softly in return, leaning her head into his hand. Kurt stood by the doors of the stables, leaning against them, hugging his arms. Blaine glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and thought the boy looked more breathtaking than any of the princesses he had met, even if Kurt was exhausted and probably couldn’t bear the weight of his soul inside his body. 

“Anything else I can do?” asked the prince.

Kurt slowly shook his head once. “No, thank you,” he replied with a mile; one that was soft around the corners of his lips, like even smiling was tiring to him at this point. “You’ve done more than enough.” 

“I can always do a little more,” Blaine said, but Kurt shook his head once more, so Blaine stopped insisting. “Well,” he said, “if you need anything else, you know where to find me.”

“Obviously,” Kurt said with that soft smile still across his mouth. 

Blaine didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay here, make sure that Kurt was all right and that he would be okay; that he wouldn’t break apart as soon as Blaine left.

What was he thinking? Of course Kurt wouldn’t break apart. He was stronger than Blaine gave him credit for, he had always been. He was one of the strongest people Blaine had ever known. Besides, he didn’t have any more excuses to stay, now that Kurt had assured him he had everything under control. _Besides,_ he had to go back to continue his lesson about the politics of Dalton and meet more princes and not attempt to suffocate himself with his pillow. 

*

The first thing Kurt did was finish the sword his father had left undone. It bothered him to see it like that, with its blade still unsharpened, so he sat down and had the weapon ready sooner than he had thought. He was going to have to help his dad with his shop now—more than he’d been helping him since he was little—so it was better for him to get as used as he could to working with metal. 

He took a cloth from the stables and scrubbed the dried floor off the ground as best as it was possible. He didn’t have to get used to the coppery smell of blood. Hopefully his father would not scare him like that again in any near future.

He went back to the stables and started to give water to the horses. The sun was setting down in the horizon. Would Blaine be at the castle by now? Would he get in trouble for arriving without a horse, for arriving on his own, on _foot_? Would _Kurt_ get in trouble for not having given him a horse to take him to the palace?

“I hope you fed them already.”

Kurt turned around and saw his father standing at the doors of the stables, leaning against the wall with one hand. He looked exhausted, even though he had been sleeping for the past few hours, and the stable boy realized he had been too distracted thinking about Blaine—anything related to Blaine—that he hadn’t noticed how much help his dad could have used. 

“What?” he asked, not quite understanding his dad’s words.

“You’re supposed to feed them first,” Burt said, taking small steps towards his son. Kurt immediately dropped the barrel of water and ran to his father’s side to help him walk. Huh. Kurt had completely forgotten he had to feed the horses before he gave them water. God, what was wrong with him? That prince had made a mess out of him, _damn him._

“What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded, glad to change the subject. 

“I wanted to know how you were doing.”

“Me?” Kurt held himself back from scoffing—Burt hated it when he scoffed. “I’m fine. You, on the other hand—”

“I’m on my feet, aren’t I?” his father replied.

_Barely,_ Kurt thought, but he didn’t say it. “Dad, I’ve got this. I’ll start helping you at the shop tomorrow morning, and you will remain in bed and rest until you’ve recovered.”

“What happened?” Burt demanded, holding a hand to his forehead. Why was he so _stubborn_? He could barely stay upright with Kurt’s help, why didn’t he simply go to bed to keep resting?

_For the same reason you’re still friends with Blaine,_ the stable boy thought grudgingly. _You both like to suffer, apparently. Both of you are as stubborn as a mule._

“I went to the palace,” Kurt answered. “I talked to Blaine—” He stopped at the look his father gave him. “I talked to His Royal Prince,” Kurt started over, “and he was kind enough to bring the court’s physician to see you. He said you’d been working too hard and that you should take some time off your blacksmith duties.”

“So you’re going to take care of both the shop and the stables?”

“Temporarily.”

Burt nodded, and he took a deep breath that he exhaled through his nose, like he was thinking of all the advantages this could bring for him but all the disadvantages it would bring for Kurt.

“You sure you can handle it?” he asked Kurt.

This time, the stable boy did scoff. “I think I’ll be fine.” Since he noticed that his father could stand on his own two feet without his help for now, Kurt went to fill some sacks of hay to feed the horses, and he was going to feed Robin first. She had made two trips round to and from the castle, and she had pulled the carriage twice. She wasn’t meant to pull a carriage, and she had never done it before, but she hadn’t failed Kurt. He made sure to pet her when he was feeding her. 

“He didn’t have to do it,” Burt said. 

“Who didn’t have to do what?”

“The prince,” his dad went on. “He didn’t have to send the court’s physician.”

“Well, he also came here himself.”

Only after Burt let out a thoughtful, “Did he really,” did Kurt realize his mistake. 

Why did he have to mention Blaine had accompanied them himself? 

Why _had_ Blaine accompanied them himself? He didn’t have to. He could’ve sent a guard as the carriage’s conductor and ordered the physician to treat Burt like he would treat anyone from the palace. There was no need for the prince to physically be there. And still, with Blaine standing beside him, Kurt had felt less nervous, like having his best friend with him would make everything okay somehow. Like Blaine would make sure Burt came out of whatever had happened to him. 

“He didn’t have to do that, either,” said his father, and Kurt didn’t like the tone with which he’d spoken.

Why had Kurt thought it was a good idea to cry to him about loving the prince when he first realized that was what he felt for his best friend? He hadn’t _cried_ , not exactly, but he had stomped his foot on the floor of his room and thrown his fists in the air and screamed about how unfair life was. 

Kurt immediately knew what his father was implying, and he tried not to think about Blaine’s response when Kurt had told him those exact same words. 

_Of course I did._ Like there had never been another choice in his mind. 

“He only sent the court’s physician because it was me who asked him,” the stable boy said, hushing the little voice inside his head that wanted him to hope. He thought he’d shut it up years ago. “He came with us because he’s my best friend. And because he’s too good for his own good. If someone he didn’t know had come asking for help, he would have reacted the same way he did this time. Now go back to bed, you need to rest. Orders from the physician.”

He knew that what he told Burt wasn’t true—at least, not entirely true, Blaine was too good for his own good—but he didn’t want to believe it himself. He didn’t want to believe that the prince had been there, beside him, for another reason. 

His dad didn’t go to bed; in fact, he remained exactly where he was. “Kurt—”

“Don’t,” Kurt cut him off almost immediately. “I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.”

But his father didn’t let go of the matter. “Son—”

“ _Dad_ ,” Kurt said, and he swallowed when he felt tears prickling behind his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry. He had known this for a long time now, and he had never sobbed about it. Like the nursery rhymes his mother had sung to him before she passed away—something he had memorized, something he had constantly repeated to himself as a child—Kurt recited as bitterly as he would recite a useless prayer, “Princes don’t marry stable boys.” 

It was the first time he had said those words out loud to someone other than himself, and they hurt as though an archer was using his chest for target practice. He heard Burt sigh deeply; not in disappointment, but in something similar. Like he was afraid Kurt was giving up on something Kurt had actually given up on a long time ago. 

“Maybe not,” his father said. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t love each other.”

When Kurt laughed, the tears he’d been trying to hold back rained down his face, and he talked through them as he went to Marion’s pen and fed her. She tried to bite his hand off once, and he didn’t even notice. “He doesn’t love me,” he stammered, hurtful as it was. 

His dad put a hand on his shoulder, but Kurt didn’t face him for fear of the hope he might find there. He didn’t want to hope. He had taught himself to stop hoping.

“I thought,” Burt said, “that out of the two of us, you were the one who knew that prince better than even himself.” 

And he walked away (actually, he stumbled away like a drunk man) without waiting to hear his son’s answer. 

Kurt stood there, in the stables, at a loss for what to do. His father didn’t understand; even if Blaine loved him—which he _did not_ —there was no way they could be together. The king and queen had already agreed to let him marry a man instead of a woman, but it couldn’t be just any man. That man would have to be a prince from another kingdom, or a marquis, or a baron, or someone of a similar position. 

Not a stable boy. Not Kurt. 

He had known this since he was thirteen; young and hopelessly in love with his best friend, who would never feel the same way he did; his best friend, who had helped him raise two mares and who had spent countless days in the stable simply because he found Kurt’s company better than the silence of his castle.

His best friend, who would never be able to marry him, even if he did feel the same way as Kurt. 

That was simply how things were, and he had learned to accept it. 

“Princes don’t marry stable boys,” he repeated to himself, knowing that wishing any different wouldn’t change things. Wishes were a silly belief parents taught their children to keep them quiet at night, serving the same purpose as prayers. They didn’t work. They weren’t real.  
But that didn’t keep Kurt from wishing those words stopped hurting someday. 

*

The stables right by Kurt’s home were dark and quiet, just as Blaine knew they would be at this time of the night. He had always left hours before it was this late, and he knew Kurt didn’t stay up for much longer after his departure. 

Sneaking out of the castle was easy enough; he’d actually thought it would be more difficult. He had changed into more comfortable clothes—clothes that weren’t part of his wardrobe as a prince, thank you very much—he had put his crown on a satchel, for a strange fear of leaving it behind, and he had climbed out his window. He’d only had to sneak away from the guards at the palace, but they were too busy looking out for any intruders to notice him. They didn’t expect anyone to come out of the castle. 

Blaine didn’t care how late it was, he simply… he needed to get away. He needed to get away and shut the rest of the world out and think about himself for a moment; without putting his kingdom first, without worrying about the future of Dalton, about all the men he’d had to meet and all the men he would be forced to continue meeting as candidates for future king. He had to think about himself without putting anyone but himself first for even a moment, because if he didn’t, his head was going to burst open. _And what would become of Dalton if His Royal Prince Blaine’s head burst open?_ he thought bitterly.

Most of all, he didn’t want to think about what the queen had told him earlier: “You should start considering which of the noblemen you’ve met would be a good king to Dalton. You’re almost seventeen, Blaine, and the rulers of this kingdom have always been married by the time they turn eighteen.”

He didn’t want to choose any of the stupid noblemen he had met. He didn’t think any of them would be a good king for Dalton—not that he himself would be a good king, he didn’t believe so—but that didn’t even matter. The only one he wanted ruling by his side was Kurt.

And that was never going to happen. 

He gently patted Marion’s side, and the mare softly stomped on the ground with one leg and whickered. Goodness, he had missed her. He wished he could keep her at his own stables, or that he could bring her back and forth. Blaine was incredibly glad that she was a quiet animal (with him, at least, Kurt had enough complaints about her) and that she didn’t make too much of a fuss when he woke her up. “You up for a little night-ride, girl?”

“ _Back away from the mare_!” 

Blaine turned on his feet, and he saw Kurt standing at the stables’ doors. He was holding a branding bar on one hand and a torch on the other one, whose light showed that he was still half-asleep, his narrowed eyes not entirely focused. Damn him and his light feet, managing to sneak up on Blaine since they were younger. 

“I _will_ brand you!” he cried, moving his bar-wielding arm closer to the torch. “Back away from the mare and I will let you go in peace!”

How could Kurt not recognize him, even if the only light came from the torch on his hand? Oh, right, his clothes. He probably didn’t look like himself at all. 

“Kurt, Kurt!” Blaine raised his hands at his sides. “It’s me, it’s Blaine!”

“Oh…” Kurt sighed and dropped his bar-wielding arm to his side, holding the torch higher so that it lit up more of the stable. His eyes gleamed with recognition, tired as they were. “Blaine, what are you doing here? Do you have any idea of how late it is?”

“I know, I know,” Blaine said, taking a saddle to put on Marion. “I just needed to get away from the castle and my parents and everything there. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“That’s fine,” Kurt said, unable to hide the yawn that came out of his mouth. “I was going to check up on the horses, anyway. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Blaine pulled Marion away from her stable by the reins. “I don’t know,” he said. Then, without thinking, he added, “Maybe you could come with me and stop me from jumping into a lake with rocks tied to my ankles.”

“All right.”

He gave a startled jump. “What?”

“All right,” Kurt repeated. He went over to the mare’s pen so that he could leave the branding bar there. “I’ll go with you. Can’t let the prince drown. More importantly, I can’t let my best friend drown.”

“I was _kidding_.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Just give me a moment to prepare Robin and we’ll go.”

“Robin’s already been through enough for a day—”

“She’s a strong girl. She can handle it.”

Blaine couldn’t let Kurt go with him. Of course, having his best friend by his side was always something to look forward to, but now he was tired. He was angry and he wanted to scream at the world, yet he certainly didn’t want to do it while Kurt was next to him, listening. Maybe he screamed something he didn’t want Kurt to hear—something stupid like, “I’m in love with you and I love you and I want to spend my life with you, but I can’t, and you probably don’t even love me back, so what’s the point?”—and he would never be able to live with himself afterwards. 

“ _I_ am going,” he said, his grip on Marion’s reins tightening. “You’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” Kurt said. He had woken Robin up already, and now he was putting a saddle on her—a task he was struggling with, considering he was still holding the torch in one hand. 

“No,” Blaine said through clenched teeth. “You are _not_.”

Kurt turned on his heels so that he was face-to-face with the prince. He was frowning a little, like he used to do when they were children and the guards at the castle kept telling him to call Blaine “His Royal Prince.”

“Are you going to _order_ me not to go?”

Blaine sighed quietly and ran a hand down his face. He didn’t look at Kurt when he answered, “You know I would never do that. Much less to you.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” He raised his head, and he saw that Kurt was smiling apologetically. “Well,” said the stable boy, “are you going to let me come with you or am I going to have to secretly follow you?”

“It’s not much of a secret if you confess your intentions.”

“Technicalities,” Kurt said with a nonchalant wave of his free hand. He had managed to put both reins and a saddle to Robin, and now he was guiding her to stand beside Marion. Both riders made their way to the entrance of the stables, and Kurt extinguished the torch in one of the barrels of water before he closed the doors.

Blaine got on Marion’s saddle, and he waited until Kurt had done the same. 

“Where are we off to?” Kurt asked, petting Robin’s neck. 

“As far as we can go,” Blaine answered, glancing sideways at his best friend. 

Marion neighed and started to trot. Robin and Kurt followed the pair, and soon, both mares were galloping underneath the night sky. 

*

“So,” Kurt began. “Are you going to tell me about everything you had to get away from? Or are we just going to stare at the moon and the stars until dawn breaks?”

They had arrived to a small stream inside the woods close to the stables, and they had sat on the edge of the stream while the mares drank and rested, illuminated by the moonlight, the night sky completely clear and with no clouds in sight. Blaine sighed deeply and ran his hands through his hair. 

“I really don’t know if I’m up for the talk,” the prince answered. 

“All right,” Kurt said, hugging his knees to his chest, and he looked at the reflection of the sky in the stream. “Staring at the moon and stars, it is.”

Blaine closed his eyes. He knew he could tell Kurt anything and the stable boy would understand, but sometimes he felt bad, dumping all of his troubles on him. Kurt never complained to Blaine about anything, how did Blaine find it so easy to do it?

“I don’t think I’m ready to be king.”

Kurt’s gaze didn’t shift to Blaine. “Why not?”

“I wouldn’t know what to do,” Blaine said, “about… _anything_ at all.” He stood up from the edge of the stream and began to pace from side to side, behind Kurt. He wouldn’t find any peace of mind while he was pacing, but at least he wouldn’t feel so useless. “My father knows the status of every family in the kingdom, and he knows when one needs to be given the title of nobility. He knows when he needs to go to war and when he needs to keep the peace. He knows when to sign peace treaties and when it’s better not to. He knows how to keep his people happy, he knows what to do under any and every circumstance, he…” 

_He’s had the love of his life by his side all along,_ he thought bitterly. _And I will never have that._

Blaine stopped pacing, and he ran a hand through his hair once again, leaving it on the back of his neck. 

“He knows everything about being a king,” he muttered softly, almost as if he were talking to himself. Maybe at this point, he was. “And I know nothing about even being a prince. What do I know how to do, Kurt?”

Kurt turned around and sat cross-legged on the ground covered with small tufts of grass. 

“Well,” he said, just as softly. “You know how to ride a horse.”

For a second, Blaine thought he was joking. But when he didn’t see Kurt’s expression change, he started chuckling. Then his chuckles turned into outright laughter, and he began laughing so hard that he fell down to the ground, holding his stomach with both arms wrapped around himself. Kurt, though Blaine couldn’t see, was smiling. 

“That’s right,” Blaine said once he could breathe and talk again. “I _do_ know how to ride a horse. But I wouldn’t have been able to learn if it hadn’t been for you.”

Kurt waved his hand nonchalantly. “I just helped you see there was nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “After the incident with Vivian, that is. You did everything else by yourself.”

“I mean,” Blaine argued, “if you hadn’t shown me I didn’t have to be afraid— _after_ the incident with Vivian—I wouldn’t have ever climbed on a horse again. Therefore, I wouldn’t have learned how to ride one.”

“Fine,” Kurt admitted with a shy smile and a soft blush to his cheeks. God, he was beautiful. The moonlight reflecting down upon them should have made Kurt’s pale skin look even paler, but to Blaine, he seemed to be shining. “You learned how to ride a horse thanks to me.”

“Don’t even pretend you’re not proud of that,” said the prince, and Kurt laughed and covered his mouth with his hand, as if he were embarrassed to admit he was, indeed, proud. 

They stayed by the stream a little longer, watching how clouds started to cover the sky and move in front of the moon every once in a while. They weren’t worried, though; the raining season wouldn’t start for another few weeks. They were safe. 

“You also know how to carry out a crowning ceremony,” Kurt said once they were riding back to the stables, the mares walking instead of galloping. Blaine had asked Kurt for them to go slow, saying he didn’t want to tire Robin and Marion out more than they already had, but he just wanted more time with the stable boy, especially now that he was running out of it.

“A crowning ceremony?” he asked his best friend.

Kurt pointed to his own head, and Blaine instantly realized what he meant. 

“Oh,” he said as a grin overtook his face. “Right. Of course. So there are _two_ things I know how to do as a prince.”

“And don’t forget when you gave that family their new nobility title,” Kurt added, petting Robin’s neck. “That’s already three things. What else could the people of Dalton ask of you as their king?” 

Blaine chuckled, because although he knew that he would have so many more responsibilities when he became king than those, he appreciated Kurt trying to make him feel better by cracking jokes. 

The rest of their ride was quiet. Blaine would miss this the most, probably: when he and Kurt were together and there was no need to exchange words with one another. Each other’s company was more than enough, even the sideways glances they would steal from time to time, laughing whenever their eyes met. Blaine would never have that with anyone else—he could never be as comfortable with someone as he was with Kurt. He’d had years for that, something he wouldn’t have with his future husband. 

Not that he wanted to, anyway. 

They put their mares on their pens and gave them some water and a little hay so that they could rest. Then the prince and the stable boy walked out of the stables, and Kurt closed the doors. 

“Goodnight,” he said, but he stayed in front of the doors, his back to Blaine, as if he expected the prince to leave immediately. 

Blaine wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, or wrap his arms around Kurt and never let go of him, or kiss his cheek and then kiss his mouth and hold his face between his hands and tell him how much he loved him, how much he wished he weren’t a prince, just so that he could marry Kurt without wondering if it was convenient for his kingdom or not. 

Because Kurt’s _goodnight_ had sounded more like a _goodbye_. 

And he had sounded heartbroken about it.

“Remember how we used to say goodbye,” Blaine started, unable to help himself, “when we were kids?”

He had sworn to himself that he would never bring this up. He would never hold this against Kurt, never question why Kurt had stopped; if it was because it had made him uncomfortable or if it was because of something else. He had never wanted to stop and think about the “something else”; he hadn’t wanted to hope for anything, because it was still destined to fail. Knowing that Kurt didn’t feel the same way for him made things easier. It would be so much more difficult if Kurt actually loved him back. 

Blaine had convinced himself of that. He had spent years convincing himself, realizing it was what was best. 

But now… what if… what if Kurt actually…?

“I remember,” Kurt said, his back still to the prince. 

“How did we used to say goodbye?”

Kurt scoffed, but Blaine barely heard him, like the stable boy wanted to put an end to this conversation. “If you don’t remember, Blaine, you could’ve just said so.”

“I do remember,” Blaine said, trying not to raise his voice. “But I want _you_ to tell me.”

The stable boy was silent for a moment, and that moment went on and on and on, although Blaine probably felt it was longer than it actually was. He feared he _had_ gone too far, that Kurt knew exactly why he was asking, and that the prince had read the wrong signs. 

Then, however, Kurt spoke.

“We would hug,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides. Had he been holding the stables’ doors all this time? “And then we would kiss each other’s cheek.”

“I can’t remember who started it,” Blaine continued. “If you were the first one to kiss me or if I was the one who kissed you first. But I do know that you’re the one who stopped.”

He saw Kurt’s shoulders tense. 

He took small, slow steps towards the stable boy until they were separated by only a couple of feet. “I thought it was because it made you uncomfortable,” Blaine went on. “I thought perhaps you needed your space. Maybe we were too old to keep saying goodbye like that, but I would have liked for both of us to decide that. The problem is that you never said anything about it, you simply… stopped doing it.”

Kurt hadn’t moved. His head was dropped against the doors of the stables, like he had leaned against Blaine’s back earlier that same day. 

“Is there a point to this conversation, Blaine?” Kurt demanded. 

“I just want to know why you stopped,” Blaine said: that really was the whole point to this conversation, to know whether he was right or if he had been wrong for years.

“Why?”

_To finally have some peace of mind._

“I would like to know.”

“ _Why_?” Kurt insisted, and he was starting to sound impatient, as if he might leave Blaine to his damn questions any moment now. 

What other answer could he give him?

“Because I think I need to know,” Blaine said, matching Kurt’s angry tone with his own. He wouldn’t walk away without having some answers himself. His best friend was stubborn, but the prince had learned that he needed patience to deal with more situations than riding a horse. 

“ _Why_?” Kurt nearly screamed, turning on his heels so that he was facing Blaine. He was glaring at him as though he wanted the prince to die on the spot, to drop dead at his feet. Blaine, shocked and upset as he was, stood his ground and prepared for the worst. “Why do you want to know so badly? _Why is it so important to you?”_

“BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO STOP!”

A prince didn’t have to yell to be heard. He just had to be loud enough. 

But Blaine didn’t feel much like royalty at the moment; he felt like he was any other boy, lost and in love and wanting answers that would hopefully soothe his pain. He didn’t care if he was yelling now—he had wanted to yell for so long, and this might be the only chance he got to do it. Kurt had never treated him like a prince, anyway, had never expected him to act like one. 

The stable boy was looking at him with a pained look in his eyes, as though that was the last thing he had wanted Blaine to say. 

“I didn’t want you to stop,” Blaine repeated more softly as he glanced at the ground between them. “And I feel like I ought to know why you did.”

“You don’t want to know,” Kurt said, and Blaine had to look up; his best friend sounded close to tears, and he was biting his lip as if he were holding them back. Kurt had never cried in front of Blaine—had he ever cried at all? The prince didn’t know, but he didn’t want to witness it. It would only break his heart, without even giving him the chance to do something about it. “Believe me.” 

“I beg to differ,” said Blaine. 

Kurt looked down at the ground before glancing up at the night sky. He was so gorgeous, so breathtaking, even when he was close to sobbing, that Blaine thought he might cry. Why was he holding back tears? Why was he close to sobbing?

What had Blaine _done_?

Before he had the chance to do anything at all, Kurt closed the short distance between them, grabbed the front of Blaine’s shirt, and pulled him towards him.

And kissed him. 

*

Kurt had only thought about kissing Blaine so many times. He had even thought about ways of making it happen, all of them making it look like it had been an accident. Perhaps he had leaned in to kiss the prince’s cheek in their goodbye gesture, and Blaine had happened to move ever so slightly, and Kurt’s lips touched Blaine’s, even for a second. 

He had never imagined their first kiss would happen like this.

He didn’t know what had come over him: Blaine’s screaming, or his wish to know why Kurt had been the first one to pull away when they were thirteen, or his never-ending insistence. One of those things (or maybe all of them) had made something snap inside of Kurt, and everything he had held back for years—his love for Blaine, his own desire to tell him of his feelings, his wishing that something would happen between them regardless of his knowledge that it _couldn’t_ —spilled out of him, as if he had opened the lid of a box. 

Blaine’s lips were slightly parted against his, but Kurt still didn’t know if it was because they had been talking or because Blaine had done that when Kurt had pressed their mouths together. 

All he was sure of was that Blaine was kissing him back. 

Blaine was holding him by the elbows, and he seemed to be pulling Kurt closer to himself.   
And he was kissing Kurt back.

Goodness gracious, he was _kissing Kurt back._

Kurt had his eyes closed, but he didn’t know if Blaine had his closed or not. He let go of Blaine’s shirt, and his hands moved to the prince’s hair, running his fingers through the black curls like he had wanted to do for years: they were soft against his skin, and when he laid his hands on the prince’s nape, Blaine shuddered against him, and it seemed to set Kurt’s entire body on fire, every bit of him standing on edge. Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt’s waist so that his own hands rested against the stable boy’s back, on the curve of his spine, and now it was Kurt who shuddered against him, and Blaine only held him tighter, pulling their bodies as close as it was possible. 

_I love you,_ Kurt thought suddenly. The words were almost foreign to him; he had never allowed himself to think them, fearing that Blaine would be able to hear them and tell him that he didn’t reciprocate his feelings. Now he wanted to say them, to let Blaine listen to them as he repeated them over and over again, but he would rather kiss Blaine for now. He could say “I love you” when they had stopped kissing. Blaine pulled him from the back of his shirt, and Kurt nearly lost his balance, but the prince’s arms were around him, and he would not let Kurt fall. 

Blaine broke away from him to pepper his mouth with quick kisses that Kurt wasn’t fast enough to return. He chuckled softly at his attempts, in which Kurt only got to kiss the corner of his lips, but when he accidentally kissed the side of his jaw, Blaine groaned and let his head fall on Kurt’s shoulder, trying to catch his breath. 

*

“Was that okay?” Kurt asked him after Blaine hadn’t said a word. 

Was what okay? The kissing in general or the particular kiss to Blaine’s jaw that had made the prince feel like his bones were liquefying inside his body?

“Yes,” Blaine breathed out the word. “That was _definitely_ okay.” 

So Kurt kissed the side of his jaw again, and Blaine shivered, his fists clutching the back of Kurt’s shirt. And he did it again. And again. And again. And the next time he did it, he marked a trail of kisses from Blaine’s jaw to his mouth. 

“You’re going to kill me,” the prince groaned into Kurt’s parted lips.

Kurt laughed, and he breathed against Blaine’s mouth. “I certainly hope not.”

He was the one to pull away this time, and he leaned their foreheads together, so when Blaine opened his eyes, he was surprised to find Kurt’s closed. But he took the chance he had to stare unabashedly at the beautiful boy in front of him, and although he couldn’t see much of Kurt’s face at such short distance, he could _feel_ him: he felt his hands on his nape; he felt his breath on his face, he felt his heart beating almost as strong as his own. 

Kurt… Kurt had freckles. They weren’t that noticeable, but there they were, right above his nose, spreading throughout his cheeks and up to his ears like a blush would do. 

He wanted to kiss every single one of them. 

“Do you love me?” Kurt whispered, like he was afraid of the answer—softly, shyly. If Blaine hadn’t been so close to him, he wouldn’t have heard him. 

Of course Blaine loved him. God, he loved him. He couldn’t even begin to tell Kurt how much he loved him.

“I love you,” he said, realizing that it was as close as he would get. “I love you, Kurt, of course I do.”

Kurt sighed in what sounded like relief and opened his eyes, and Blaine noticed that his eye color seemed to be changing from his normal blue to a shade of bright green and back to blue. Had they always done that? He had only ever seen Kurt’s eyes as blue, but now they were like a lake, reflecting all the beauty around it. Except that this lake had a beauty of its own, without the need to reflect anything to be stunning.

“I love you, too,” Kurt said, pressing a soft kiss to Blaine’s lips. “I spent years wishing I didn’t, and now…”

Reality seemed to strike him then, forcing him to crash back to the ground. 

There was a reason Blaine thought it was better that Kurt didn’t return his feelings: it gave him the possibility to move on, to learn to love whatever man he ended up marrying for the sake of Dalton. Even though Blaine had thought he would never stop loving Kurt, he knew he would probably need to, or at least he would need to pretend he loved his husband more than he loved a stable boy. Now that he knew that Kurt loved him—Kurt _loved_ him, he _loved him_ —it felt wonderful, it felt incredible, it felt like he could live off kissing Kurt, like he didn’t need air as long as he could kiss Kurt. 

But Kurt was still a stable boy, and Blaine was still a prince. 

The boy seemed to know what he was thinking. His thumbs caressed the back of Blaine’s neck. 

“Princes don’t marry stable boys,” he said in resignation, as though it wasn’t the first time he said those words, much less the first time he thought them. It broke Blaine’s heart. 

“I’ll find a way,” Blaine promised—vowed. “I will find a way for us to be together, Kurt, I swear.”

Kurt softly shook his head. “There’s no way, Blaine.”

“I will,” Blaine assured him. At the moment, he couldn’t think of anything, but he would. Now that he knew he had a chance, that _they_ had a chance, he wasn’t letting it go. He wouldn’t stop until he had found a way to marry Kurt, even if it took him all the time he had until he turned eighteen. And if he hadn’t found a way by then, he would keep looking. His father didn’t have to leave his crown yet—he would get more time. He took Kurt’s face into his hands and kissed his mouth. “I swear. Trust me.”

Kurt smiled that soft smile he’d had earlier, the one that was soft around the edges, like it pained him to let it take over his lips. “Like you trust me?”

Blaine grinned. “Like I trust you.”

*

Kurt walked back inside his house, which was a small place next to his father’s blacksmith shop, and leaned back against the door. He covered his mouth with his hand, but he could still feel Blaine’s lips against his. A smile overtook him, and he felt like he was smiling with his entire face instead of only using his mouth. 

He felt like he was a different person from the one he’d been this afternoon, even from the one who had ridden out into the woods with the prince only some time ago. 

He tried not to ponder too much about the fact that Blaine kissing him—Blaine had _kissed him_ , he couldn’t stop thinking about that, either—didn’t change his status as a mere stable boy. His best friend had assured him that he would find a way for them to be together, and although Kurt wasn’t too sure about that, he believed Blaine. He believed and trusted in him. Should he still think of him as his best friend, after what had just happened?

He didn’t care. He only cared about the memory of kissing Blaine, of finding out that the feeling he had kept secret for three years, the feelings that he had wished he didn’t feel, were actually reciprocated. 

Before Kurt went to bed, he walked by his father’s room, just to make sure that his father was sleeping, that he wasn’t unconscious and with blood coming out of his mouth. He didn’t even have to go in: the moment he heard Burt snoring, Kurt smiled and sighed deeply. His dad was all right. And Kurt himself was perfectly fine, too. 

He went to bed, and he allowed himself to think about Blaine (something he hadn’t done since he was thirteen) before he fell asleep. 

*

This was the third book Blaine had skimmed over this week, and he still hadn’t found any results. The library of the castle had thousands of books in which Blaine could look for a way to be able to marry Kurt, but he didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t as though the books were divided by subject: the novels were right next to the science books; the science books were right next to the ones about botany, and sometimes even in between; those were mixed with the ones about religion, and so on and so on and so on. He had tried checking on the books about politics, and some manuals they had about being a knight or a nobleman or even a prince, but he needed to find how a prince could marry a stable boy.

So far, none of the books or manuals or papyruses had anything about that.

Day after day, week after week, he buried his nose in the books of the palace’s library, trying to find what he wanted—uselessly. 

Blaine had gone back to spend as much time as he could in the stables. He and Kurt would talk about possibilities, or they would ride their mares together, or maybe Blaine would help Kurt in the blacksmith shop, repairing a sword or sharpening an ax or crafting daggers. But most of the time, they would simply stay inside the stables, standing next to each other, exchanging kisses every once in a while. 

Whenever he needed to attend to his duties as a prince, whether it was carrying out an entitlement ceremony or being in a meeting with his father and his regents now that he was seventeen, Blaine liked to drop little hints at the staff of his castle that was around him in every given occasion. 

“Has anyone who wasn’t a nobility ever been married into the royal family?” he had asked a guard once. 

“Not that I’m aware of, Your Highness,” the guard had answered him. “However, I believe I’m not the appropriate man to answer your question. Perhaps one of the regents will know for sure?”

He repeated the question to one of the regents of the king’s court, who was too busy trying to teach him about the relationship Dalton used to have with Lima before the war. 

“What kind of question is that, if I may ask _you_ , my lord?”

“I was just wondering,” Blaine responded. “So, has there been anyone?”

“Of course not,” the regent said, quite exasperated with the prince by now. “Once there was a marchioness, I believe, but it’s been the only time the queen wasn’t a princess.”

Well, that wasn’t going to help Blaine. If Kurt were anyone with a nobility title, everything would be so much easier. After all, Blaine hadn’t only met princes; he’d been forced to dine with boys who would inherit positions as earls or viscounts or barons or dukes or marquises. If only he weren’t a prince, or if Kurt was a nobleman, or if he inherited the title from someone…

The entitlement ceremony. 

Blaine remembered all the families his father had granted the nobility title to. He remembered carrying out the ceremonies himself and reading out loud the reasons why they were being rewarded: from things as small as having given shelter for a night to Blaine’s great-great-grandfather when he was exiled as a young man to things as great as having helped feed the people of Dalton with their very own crops when the kingdom was going hungry, sometime before Blaine’s father was born. 

They had all helped someone of the royal family one way or another. 

Of course. _Of course_. Blaine was an _idiot._

“We will continue this lesson tomorrow,” he told the regent, who had been speaking of the friendship between one of Blaine’s ancestors with one of the kings of Lima, hundreds of years ago. He didn’t even give the man a chance to speak before he left his room and sprinted towards the throne room. 

The king and queen were speaking to a young woman with a little boy by her side, but the woman and the boy were already bowing by the time Blaine walked into the room. They turned around, bowed their heads to the prince, and continued on their way. 

Blaine was still breathing heavily when his parents noticed his presence. “Blaine,” his father greeted him. 

“What’s the matter?” her mother asked, sensing something was wrong by the way he had just barged in here. He usually never came to the throne room unless he was told to, and when he did, he usually did it calmly, simply to report how his errands had gone. “Is everything all right?”

“I need to carry out an entitlement ceremony,” he said, gasping with every word. 

“Very well,” the king said with a smile, as if he were thinking that Blaine was finally appearing to take his royal responsibilities seriously. “You did not need to announce it to us, though—”

“It’s not for a family on the records,” Blaine interrupted him.

The king and queen turned to glance at one another, as if they were sharing a thought. _What is he talking about?_

“Not on the records?” his father repeated in disbelief. “There is still a long list of families that need to receive their title, and you wish to start with one that _isn’t_ on that list?”

“They should have been considered anyway,” Blaine said, and he realized as soon as he spoke the words that they were true. Why was the name of Kurt’s family _not_ on the records, on the list? He had known both Kurt and his father most of his life, and they had both done so much for him, how could they be only a stable boy and a blacksmith? “I will gladly continue with the rest of the ceremonies, Father, and if you want me to carry this one out after I have finished with the other ones, I will. I only need your authorization for this one.”

The king seemed to ponder it over. His face was like a closed book, and he never gave anything away unless he wanted others to know it. Blaine had always hated not knowing what his father was going to say until he heard it. Now he only hoped he would hear good news. 

“Well,” the king said, and the prince found himself hoping. “If you insist so thoroughly… What family is so important to you that you are willing to carry out one more ceremony? I know for a fact you would rather not have to perform them.”

Blaine felt his lips part in a grin even before he spoke. 

“Their family name is Hummel,” he said. 

*

It had been two weeks since the last time Blaine had come to the stables, and Kurt was starting to worry. Everything had seemed to be fine between them… had something changed? Had Blaine realized there was no way for them to be together and this was the kindest way he could think of to let Kurt know? 

“You’re thinking too much about it,” Burt was telling him for the hundredth time as he finished the handle for an ax. 

Kurt walked back to the stables, looking out the doors, hoping to see Blaine in the distance. He was so distracted that even Robin attempted to bite his hand off when he was brushing her, whinnying right in his ear. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he told her. 

Blaine would have to thank Robin for that; decided to stop focusing on the doors, Kurt went back to carefully brushing his mare, and he was so busy in the task at hand that he didn’t see the prince approaching the stables with an escort behind him, all horse-riding. The stable boy only turned when he heard the sound of the horse’s hooves as they galloped, stopping once they were in front of the stables. Blaine was at the front, and he was wearing his crown and smiling proudly as he dismounted his horse—Kurt had never seen him look like that. 

“What’s going on?” he asked. The prince had never brought an escort with him when he came to the stables. 

One of the guards was about to talk—probably to scold him for not bowing his head immediately—but Blaine held a hand up to stop him.

“You should probably get your father,” he said. “I have a very important announcement to make.”

Kurt had a bad feeling about this, but he tried to fixate on Blaine’s smile. He wouldn’t be this happy if he were bringing bad news, right? This ought to be something wonderful, something amazing, something that made Blaine smile as widely as he was doing. So Kurt went to get his father from his shop, and Burt was as surprised as his son.

“An announcement?” 

“That’s what he said.”

The two men went into the stables and then walked out of them, where His Royal Prince and his escort were waiting for them. 

Burt _did_ bow his head when he stood in front of Blaine. “What is this about, Your Majesty?”

Blaine didn’t answer him. He took out a scroll from the sleeve of his shirt, rolled it open, and started to read from it. 

“I, His Royal Prince Blaine, sole heir to the throne of the kingdom of Dalton, have come to give the Hummel family the title of nobility as compensation for their loyalty and help towards the royal family: having helped His Royal Prince Blaine learn horse-riding…”

Kurt couldn’t believe his own ears. Was Blaine… was he performing an entitlement ceremony? For _Kurt’s_ family? For him and his father? Was he truly doing this? He was still reading a list of actions that justified this, but Kurt wasn’t listening to any of them. However, he had never thought that being Blaine’s best friend since they were children had helped and benefitted the prince this much. It had never seemed to Kurt that he was doing anything helpful for Blaine. 

“The Hummel family,” the prince continued, “will be noblemen from now on, and they will be considered as such. His Royal Prince Blaine has officially decreed this order in the name of the King of Dalton.”

The prince rolled his scroll closed again, putting it back inside the sleeve of his shirt.

“You will be given one of the empty lands on the outskirts of Dalton to do with it as you please. Your home, your shop, and your stables will be moved closer to the palace.” 

Blaine looked over his shoulder at his escort and made a gesture with his hand that made them all gallop away on their horses so that the prince was the only one to remain before Kurt and his father. He looked directly at the stable boy and smiled softly.

“And who knows,” he said. “You might even be eligible as a nobleman for the prince to marry.”  
Before Kurt could fully realize what he meant, Blaine mounted his horse and galloped away, the same way his escort had moments ago. 

“Did…” Burt was the first one of the two who spoke, and Kurt turned to him. His father was glancing at the ground, as if he were trying to figure out if he was still asleep. “Did he say what I think he said?”

“You mean…” Kurt swallowed harshly, thinking over everything Blaine had said, all the words he had spoken. “That we’re now nobles? That we have a nobility title now? I will probably have to ask him _what_ title exactly—”

“No,” Burt said, and even though he wasn’t smiling when he looked up at his son, Kurt could nearly hear it in his voice. “The last part.”

_What, when Blaine said that we can be together now?_ Kurt thought, feeling his entire face heat up in a mixture of happiness and embarrassment. _That we can finally be together? That he found a way? That we could actually get married?_

“I…” Kurt turned away from his father so that he wouldn’t see his giddy smile. “I think he did.”

*

Blaine hadn’t seen Kurt yet, and it was driving him crazy. 

It was a tradition, his mother had told him, that the king should not see the future queen before their wedding. Well, in Blaine’s case, he couldn’t see the future king before their wedding, but technicalities had never been vital to him. They hadn’t been forced to spend last night apart, thank God, but the staff from the castle _had_ awakened Kurt first so that they could start preparing him for the ceremony. 

The queen wasn’t needed to get her son ready, but she had insisted.

“You’re my only son,” she had said to him as she walked into his chamber. “And I’m not going to waste the opportunity to be with you before you’re officially named king.”

“Don’t remind me,” Blaine had told her, standing in front of a mirror. 

She had put a hand on his shoulder and stood behind him so that he could only see her in their reflection. “You are ready,” she’d said. “I know you don’t think so, but you are. You will be a great king, Blaine, just like your father has been. And don’t forget…” She had kissed his cheek and left his side to help his staff get him ready. “Kurt will always be right next to you. He will help you rule Dalton.”

“Sometimes I think he’s a better fit for king than I am,” Blaine had added, and he had chuckled and covered his mouth with his hand. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

His mother had smiled at him, though he had not seen it. 

Now he still stood before the mirror, but now the women and men around him were only making sure everything was in place for him to walk out of his room and… go get married. 

Blaine was dressed in a purple shirt that had been sewn especially for the occasion, with golden cuffs around his wrists and bronze-colored buttons on the front, and black pants and boots. The crown he had worn as a prince since he was a child, which was a little small on him now, was on a desk by one of the walls. He would be given the king’s crown today, and he didn’t know how to feel about that particular upcoming event. 

Would he be a good king? Would his people accept him as they had accepted him when he was their prince? Would Kurt continue to love him, even if it turned out that Blaine wasn’t fit to be a king?

The queen caught him looking at the prince’s crown, and she approached him and gently touched his arm. She said nothing; she didn’t have to. Blaine understood her, and he smiled gratefully at her. 

She took the soon-to-be king to the throne room, where the wedding ceremony was to take place, where most of the kingdom was awaiting to receive their new monarchs. Both Blaine and Kurt would be brought out at the same time so that they could walk to the thrones together, and together they would be crowned. 

As soon as Blaine stepped into the throne room, so did Kurt. He was wearing a blue shirt that was almost white similarly tailored like Blaine’s, with red pants and black boots. His brown locks of hair were combed perfectly, not a single strand out of place. His bright blue eyes appeared to be shining as he held his hands together, one hand covering the other one. 

God, he was… he was…

Beautiful, stunning, breathtaking, angelical… none of those words were enough to describe how Kurt looked, even though Blaine wanted to use them all and more than those, words that hadn’t been invented yet, that couldn’t describe the sight Blaine had in front of him and wouldn’t be able to do so in a million years. Kurt smiled at him, then, glancing down at himself almost self-consciously, and Blaine blushed because Kurt was thinking the exact same thing about him. 

They were made to stand side by side, and were not allowed to exchange any words as they walked towards the thrones, where Blaine’s father was waiting for them, as he would be the one to crown them; not until the ceremony was over. Blaine didn’t know if he was thankful or if he ought to change that as soon as he became king: he hadn’t talked to Kurt since last night, when both had been equally nervous about the morning to come, and he wanted to do so now. But what could he say? He would probably stutter like an idiot. 

Kurt seemed to feel the same way he did: he would glance at Blaine out of the corner of his eye every few steps, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure of what. Blaine held out one of his hands, and the back of his palm brushed Kurt’s—not enough to be noticeable but enough for Kurt to feel it. 

_I love you,_ Blaine thought, hopeful that Kurt would understand his gesture. _I’m with you now and for as long as I live._

Kurt smiled that easy smile Blaine had gotten to see more and more for the past year, with Kurt living in the castle with him since Blaine had announced his wish to marry him. 

They came to a halt before Blaine’s father, who began the wedding ceremony with a prayer to bless the future kings. Next was a prayer in which the soon-to-be monarchs were asked to care for their people, to put their kingdom before everything else, as any ruler would. Finally, the crowns were brought up over a satin pillow, carefully carried by one of the regents of the royal court. Instead of having the crown of a king and the crown of a queen, there were two identical crowns to represent the equality between Blaine and Kurt. Neither crown belonged only to a king or to a queen. They would both rule over Dalton equally, making every choice that included their people together. 

Both crowns had been forged by Kurt’s father, who stood next to the former queen in the crowd of people that had been invited to witness the ceremony.

Blaine, as heir to the throne, was crowned first. He knelt in one knee and bowed his head.

“I now proclaim you,” his father began, his voice echoing throughout the entire room as he lowered the crown onto Blaine’s head, “King Blaine, ruler of the kingdom of Dalton.” Blaine stood up.

Before his father went to take the second crown, he spoke. “Father, if I may?” he asked in a whisper, holding out his hand towards the crown that would belong to Kurt. 

The monarch was confused for a moment. No king had ever crowned his spouse in his own wedding ceremony. Then again, before now, there had been no two kings as rulers of Dalton, much less had one of the kings started out as a stable boy. Blaine’s father nodded, and he stepped aside to allow his son to step forward and take the crown for his future king. 

As soon as Blaine faced Kurt with the crown in his hands, they both shared a smile. 

“Remember how we used to play at crowning you when we were children?” he whispered, softly enough so that only Kurt could hear him, and his future spouse nodded, still smiling. “Well,” Blaine continued. “When I crown you today, it will be for real.”

Kurt, just like Blaine had, knelt in one knee and bowed his head.

“I now proclaim you,” Blaine said, his voice as authoritative as his father’s had been at the same time he lowered the crown onto Kurt’s head, “King Kurt, ruler of the kingdom of Dalton!”


End file.
